Dear Mick,
Mick Molloy wrote:
>
> I would be grateful for any information/evidence that listees may have
> regarding their experiences of helicopter transfers or helicopters
> used in the emergency medical response setting.
>
> I am particularly interested in
>
> 1. Types of patients transferred
- Major Incidents - multiple patients
- Long Distance (local hospital to regional hospital) - Patients
requiring advanced life support en route or time critical intervention
(neurosurgery, etc.), or smooth ride (spinal injuries)
- ISS >15
- Search and Rescue- with winch/fixed line capability.
Need to differentiate primary, secondary and tertiary response - can
often work to stricter criteria (actual clinical observations) for
secondary/tertiary response.
> 2. total transfer times
Varies tremendously from minutes in the UK to hours in Africa.
Time of transfer not as important as time to provision of definitive
care, either through heli bringing it or taking to neuro centre, etc.
> 3. Reasons for transfers
As for (1).
> 4. Quality improvements demonstrated if any
LOL - yes, next question ... Jon Nichols has done some work on
cost-effectiveness, though the debate is clouded in the UK through the
use of public fundraising as the premdominant funding stream.
> 5. size of helicopters used
single engine - daylight hours operation, generally not over densely
populated areas - Jetranger.
twin engine - night flying and over densely populated areas - B105 and
EC135.
Military aircraft - multiple patient transport capability - Puma,
SeaKing, Oryx.
> 6. Ability to transfer multiple patients
In civilian setting, Spanish use Hueys - UH1. Old design, but can load
multiple patients and can retrofit winch capability. Twice rotor
diameter requirement for LZ not dramatically more than for helis that
can take one patient.
Otherwise really just military helis.
> 7. Requirements at landing sites
Groan - long list. Can range up to full-time fire fighter cover. Also
another list if used for night flying (lights, etc).
> 8. How patients are transferred at the destination if not possible
> to land on hospital site
Fly to a hospital that has a LZ not requiring secondary land transfer!!
Significant risk to patient.
Seriously, standard SOP covering land-crew activation to LZ to
rendezvous and undertake secondary transfer to A&E.
>
> Has anybody any experience with Osprey V22 rotating wing craft
Nope, sorry.
Anton
>
> Mick Molloy
> Clinical fellow in Emergency medicine
> St Vincent’s University hospital, Dublin, Ireland
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